Frank's the new backup on the B team, his total value gets him by Greenberg, he and Bagwell are a good fight for the starting spot. Neither Ozzie nor Dahlen has the bat to make either squad. Chipper beats out Brett, and they both beat out Allen/Santo to take over the A team's third base spot. The career value disparity really should put Yaz above Jackson as the backup left fielder, but Shoeless Joe was a significantly better player per game and Yaz becomes the new starter for the B team. DiMaggio cruises into center field for the A team. Jenkins isn't going to make either team, Mussina slides in after Schilling on the B team. And Pedro...he's the new best pitcher of all time. That gives the B team 24, with only a backup CF missing, so I'll throw in Rose.

The last two catchers are here; Bench's cumulative value sticks him past Piazza's bat (Mike Piazza=the second best catcher in baseball history). Pudge's bat isn't good enough to get him on either team. Bagwell challenges at first - pretty clearly he's the new starter for the B team, given his big value advantage over Greenberg. Gehringer's the new starter for the B team, I considered his value advantage over Robinson, but Jackie's per game advantage is still the big disparity between them. Vaughan/Yount are on the board for shortstop - look at Vaughan's bat and per game value, he blows by Banks and is the new best shortstop we've seen. Yount's not going to make it. Waner and Clemente are highly comparable, there's almost no distance between them; I'll say they're the new B teamers in right. Neither Rose or Plank makes it.

11 months down. There's a bit of a horse race for Athlete of the Year; I had in mind a winner for the past few months, but after this month, I've moved someone else in the lead spot. Here are the first 11 nominees:

SI comes out with its Sportsman of the Year at the top of December; my choice won't be influenced by that choice. I like to wait until I have a December winner, and usually look to find a December winner sometime around the third week of the month. At that point, I'll also list each Athlete of the Year since 1990, as that's how long I've been doing this continuous exercise.

The Bush tax cuts, extended last December, resulted in an average 2011 tax savings of 66 grand per household for the top 1% of income earners in the US.

For the other 99%, the savings was a little less than 1500 bucks.

The average household income for that 99% is 58 grand (I'm below average). This means that, in the United States in 2011, the tax cuts for the average household in the top 1% are more than the income for the average household in the 99%. If you make less than 66 grand, that's the position you and I are both in.

1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).

2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.

3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.

4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.

6. Reorder our nation's spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.

7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers allAmericans all of the time.

8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.

9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. (For any U.S. businesspeople freaking out at this idea because you think workers can't run a successful company: Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)

10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:

a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.

b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.

c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a "second bill of rights" as proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.

• The wealthiest 1% of U.S. households had net worth that was 225 times greater than the median or typical household’s
net worth in 2009. This is the highest ratio on record.

•The median net worth of black households was $2,200 in 2009, the lowest ever recorded; the median among white
households was $97,900.

4. Remember, it's Not About Race

Michelle Obama got booed at a NASCAR event. You know, like Laura Bush always got booed by left leaning sports fans. Booing first ladies is a time honored American tradition. When she threw out the first ball in an 1882 game between the Worcester Ruby Legs and Wilmington Quick Steps, Ellen Arthur was so roundly jeered over Standard Oil's control of 90+% of the nation's oil market "you're nothing but a Dollymop, madame" that she had to be escorted from the diamond by future Hall of Famer John Clarkson. The two began a torrid affair foreshadowing Mickey Mantle's notorious decade long dalliance with Bess Truman.

My Ladygal picked up a nice writeup for one of her many projects this week. This one geared to parents of young children. Consider forwarding the link to someone who might order one or a dozen and one.

We start at first with Thome; he's going to back up Greenberg on the B team. Then Grich/Frisch, note the former was significantly better than the latter. Grich was also better than Rod Carew, the bat wasn't quite as good, the top end not quite as good, but more value in fewer plate appearances means Grich had both a better career and was better per game. He's the new backup on the A team; Frisch won't make either team. Larkin's close to Boudreau, but I'll say instead he's the new starter for the B team. There's a B team backup third base opening for Molitor. Delahanty and Gwynn are challengers for the corners. Delahanty's the new starter in left; per game, he isn't Joe Jackson, but Ed's 16 more wins is the biggest disparity between them. Gwynn's the new B team backup in right. Drysdale/Smoltz, in that order, look for rotation spots (Sutton isn't a contender). Drysdale's gonna slip in ahead of Palmer, Smoltz after, both on the B team.

So, who joins our teams from these groups? Carter can't crack the A team; he's 10 career wins above Piazza/Dickey and that's a hard number to pass up, but they both outhit him and he had a couple thousand more plate appearances than Dickey. Pretty soon, the cumulative value of guys like Carter will force their way past guys who were better per game. Carter's the starter on the B squad. Mize is the new best first baseman; he's the same player as McGwire/Greenberg but with more career value. Two second base candidates, Carew and Whitaker (and Whitaker/Trammell going back to back on the all time career value list justifies all the hours spent putting this together). Carew joins the first team, going by Gordon and now backs up Robinson, Whitaker isn't going to quite make the B team.

Trammell and Appling go right to the B team and in that order, Rolen goes to the B team. Sheffield's the new starter in right on the B team. Brown and Schilling are interesting; they might not feel like the same guy, but they were the same guy, with Brown being just a tick better, they are closer to Marichal than you might think, but they're both going to the B team.

At this point, I'll now keep two all time rosters, looking to wind up with 2 teams of 25 who could meet in an all time series. This is a big section for second basemen; I'm pretty comfortable ranking them Kent/Biggio/Alomar. None of them goes by Robinson; I don't think they go by Gordon either. The career value difference is real at this point, Kent's 10 wins better than Gordon, but in 3,000 more plate appearances. Everything else squares up; I'll take Gordon's per game value over Kent's longevity. That makes Kent/Biggio the first members of the second team.

We've got 3 corner outfielders in this section; rank them Ramirez/Clarke/Raines. Jackson and Flick keep hold of left field over all 3, but Manny edges out Heilmann to become the new starter in right. Medwick and Crawford go to the B team when Edmonds moves in as the backup in center. Santo also joins the team, but Dick Allen's bat keeps him out of the starting lineup. That's gonna push Palmer to the B team, as I'm unwilling to lose Caruthers yet. Edgar goes to the B team. Hubbell's the new third best pitcher on the A team, kicking Ford to the B team.